Liar's Game
by CPU-City
Summary: The more he thought about it, the less he realized he could actually recall about his time at the tournament. He knew he'd been there before, but that was about all he could recall. Why hadn't this bothered him until now? Why hadn't he noticed?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is shorter than _HAZE __→A↓→A↓_. It will be only two chapters, and is inspired by Yobanashi Deceive (although it's almost unnoticeable XD ).

[EDIT]: Yeesh... Had to re-upload two seconds after posting dude to a weird uploading/formatting issue. Hopefully, I caught all the errors.

While not originally intended to be, this wound up being a side story to _HAZE __→A↓→A._

* * *

Liar's Game

* * *

Sheik had spent a lot of time thinking recently. He twirled his hair idly between his fingers and chewed on the inside of his mouth just to give himself something to do as he thought. With his vision so completely fogged by his own mind, he didn't even see when other competitors walked into the lounge room and eyed him sideways for taking up the entirety of the couch.

A voice Sheik didn't recognize right away boomed across the room with tones of disgust. "It's hotter in here than it is outside! Why's the AC off, Sheik?"

He let his red eyes shift in the direction of the sound and, after passing over Peach and Kirby, they rested on Snake. "It's not that bad."

"Yeah, if you consider Hell 'not that bad'."

Sheik looked away and stared back up at the ceiling as Snake moved to turn the air conditioner back on. Kirby began making incoherent noises that Sheik was reluctant to even consider a language, but Peach didn't move from her place on the lounge chair opposite of Sheik. He bit down hard on his cheek, the action completely going completely unnoticed underneath the cloth concealing his face, and closed his eyes. He tried to go back to thinking, but the princesses eyes bore a hole into his head and let all of the thoughts spill out.

"Yes?" Sheik asked without looking. "Is there something you'd like, Princess Peach?"

She smiled and answered with a playful laugh. "I was wondering if you'd like to have tea with me?"

He turned to face her slowly. "Me?"

Peach nodded with a grin stretched from ear to ear.

As politely as he could muster, Sheik shook his head. "No, thank you. I don't care much for the stuff."

The princess blinked and then laughed again. "So you're doing _that _again today!"

"Doing what?"

Peach stood from her chair and scooped up Kirby in her arms, a goofy smile still plastered on her face. "Oh, nothing, _Sheik_."

She left the room without so much as a glance behind her and left Sheik and Snake in the room alone. The latter having decided to smoke near the open window, Sheik choice to ignore him and finally return to his thoughts. The princess had given him something else to think about.

_Sheik_. Why had she said it like that? Like it was some sort of secret joke between the two of them that he should have picked up on. Link had said something similar earlier—not so much verbally, but with his facial expression. Sheik had approached the Hylian man in the hallway and suggested a practice match between the two of them. The two had known each other for a long while now, but they had never exchanged blows. Sheik figured it was about time that they—

—But Link only rose an eyebrow and starred at Sheik quizzically. _Is this a joke? _Sheik figured he'd meant to say. Sheik's red eyes locked with Link's blue ones until the latter shook his head awkwardly and turned to leave.

Ever since he'd woken up that morning, Sheik realized, people seemed to be acting very odd. The people that met him did so with hesitant, outstretch hands and wary eyes. The people that knew him looked at him like he was insane.

* * *

Later in the evening Sheik decided to take the opportunity to utilize the Alloy system. He'd been to other Smash tournaments prior, and, even though he'd never done much outside of the actual fights, he was fairly certain that this was a newly added portion. A Committee member kindly explained the idea to him as she typed in sample match information into her computer and brought up a display on a larger screen on the far wall. Although Sheik didn't find her explanation of "it's like fighting, but not!" at all satisfactory, or even remotely accurate, he watched the display with interest as what appeared to be mechanized fighters held together by magic fizzled on the screen. Their match began, and the two fighters leapt after each other without hesitation, only for the loser to be replaced with another Alloy and allowing the match to carry on.

The Committee member gushed with enthusiasm. "These matches can carry on indefinitely if you want." She paused and pointed to the characters on screen. "They're based after some of the actual competitors—with permission, of course! The blue one is based off of you."

Sheik blinked. He didn't recall giving permission for that. His focus zeroed in on the blue alloy, and Sheik narrowed his eyes. "It's female."

The Committee member nodded as if she completely missed the point of Sheik's comment. "Yep!"

Sheik tapped his fingers on his thigh. "And I'm not."

The Committee member turned around in confusion. "Um…"

Silence flooded the room for seconds that felt like hours. Sheik was staring like he had at Link—his gaze not wavering for even a second as the Committee member's eyes darted around for an excuse to avoid conversation. When no distraction offered itself, she turned back to the screen and locked her fingers together.

"Sorry. I… Eh…didn't know."

The corner of Sheik's mouth twitched downward. As far as he knew, he hadn't given anyone any reason to question his gender. With an inaudible sigh and acceptance of the apology, he turned to face the display screen again and further examine the blue Alloy—the gender was wrong, but they couldn't possibly have altered the fighting abilities.

Or so Sheik thought.

His interest in the Alloy quickly became nonexistent as he crossed his arms and continued to watch. Granted, some of her movement reminded Sheik vaguely of himself, but she moved far too slowly and…

"Is she using magic?"

The Committee member's eyes snapped back in Sheik's direction. "Yeah."

"If I may ask, why?"

The Committee member made a face that reminded Sheik of a pouting child. "What? No way, you can't do that twice. I almost kinda believe that 'not-a-woman thing' … _kinda_… but I'm not also going to believe that you don't use magic!"

"And why not?"

"I've seen you use magic, like, a million times!"

"When?"

"What? What do you mean _when_? Are you kidding me?"

The Committee member's sudden rise in volume must have attracted attention, for several people—more Committee members with Ike and Meta Knight tailing behind them—came into the room.

"What is going on in — " before the man was able to finish his sentence, the woman with Sheik changed her tone to a whine.

"Zelda's being weird!"

Sheik's fingernails dug into his arms, and he nearly choked on his own spit. "_Excuse _me?"

The woman pointed at him. "First she says she's not a girl, and then she says she doesn't use magic!"

"_Zelda _didn't say that, I did!"

The woman's volume increased loud enough to make everyone wish they had covered their ears. "_What_? You _are _Zelda!"

Sheik felt his face grow hot and was thankful it was covered. He didn't suffer from embarrassment very often, and it was extremely overwhelming. He didn't need twelve pairs of eyes all catching the red that likely overtook his skin.

His voice didn't hint at his embarrassment but carried an eerie calmness. "No, I'm not."

Out of the corner of his eye, Sheik noticed Ike glancing at Meta Knight. The mercenary looked just as confused as Sheik felt. Meta Knight, expression concealed completely behind gleaming metal, spoke. "Sheik is an alter ego of Zelda's. They are both separate and exactly the same."

The Committee woman appeared to calm down a bit and rejoin the mass confusion. Sheik could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"No, we're not." he said, quickly biting the side of his tongue to remind himself that he was awake and not trapped in some horribly awkward dream.

Meta Knight's tone didn't change. "It's what you registered with the Committee. It's written in the match records."

Sheik managed to politely excuse himself from the room. With a nod of thanks to the member who excused him, Sheik left slowly and calmly shut the door behind them to lock the confusion in the room until it died. The second he heard the door click shut he bolted as fast as he could towards his room and flipped open the computer.

But come to think of it, he'd only just convinced the Committee to give him the room just this morning. Where had he been sleeping before? He wracked his brain for a moment and felt stupid when he remembered that it was in the lounge room. It was where he had woken up that morning.

But he couldn't remember for the life of him why he had been sleeping there.

He temporarily shook off the thought and, for the first time since his years at the tournament, Sheik scrutinized his own information.

_ZELDA/SHEIK_

But he knew for a fact that couldn't possibly have been right. He had his own memories stretching as far back as childhood—

—but not memories of sleeping in a bed at the competition.

He slammed the laptop closed and tapped the desk with his left hand. The more he thought about it, the less he realized he could actually recall about his time at the tournament. He knew he'd been there before, but that was about _all _he could recall. Why hadn't this bothered him until now? Why hadn't he _noticed? _

His fingers dug into the wood of the desk and left marks. He needed to see Zelda.

As he left his room, he began to wonder if he had even met Zelda before.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So this wound up being more heavily interconnected with _HAZE __→A↓→A_ than I planned. Instead of its own story, like the rest in the series will be, this wound up being more of a side story to _HAZE __→A↓→A_. Sort of a glimpse into Zelda's side of the story.

I apologize, and I hope this is still enjoyable regardless. :'D I shall edit the author's notes in the first chapter accordingly.

* * *

Liar's Game

* * *

He couldn't imagine who or why someone was blasting music so loudly as the sun began creeping behind the hills for the night, but Sheik could hear it as he dashed up the stairs to the residential floors. It almost drove him insane—if it were quiet he could at least focus on the rhythmic tap of his feet on the ground. With the music backing the beat, he couldn't focus on one any specific part of the song.

His eyes didn't shift from their dead-ahead stare even once as he zipped down the corridors—not even as Sheik had to dodge people passing him to head towards the sound of something Sheik didn't hear. Wide eyed and curious, people whirled to stare at Sheik as they saw him run in the direction of what, to them, was her own room.

_Her. She. Sheikah. Sheik. _Oh god, that was terrible. There was no conceivable way that he could have actually been Zelda. She would have had to have named him then, and the line of thought that trailed to his name was so painfully uncreative that it made him want to gag. A Sheikah named Sheik.

The idea of knocking on Zelda's door hadn't occurred to him until after he'd already thrown it open. Sheik's heart leapt in his chest when he saw her standing there—it wasn't true, just like he'd believed.

"Princess Zelda, I need you to explain to me why—"

And it turned out that Sheik's Zelda just so happened to be Link. Flustered, Sheik moved closer to where he was standing and scrutinized the space behind the Hylian as if Sheik expected the princess to materialize there. So completely absorbed with his own bewilderment, Sheik didn't notice that the hero looked like a wreck.

"Where is the princess?" Sheik asked flatly.

Link lifted his head slightly and stared. A flash of exhaustion lit up the hero's face but quickly faded to mirror Sheik's confusion. Link's reply was almost drowned up by the music still being blasted through the building. "…What?"

"Zelda. Where is she?"

Link knit his eyebrows together. "You've been acting odd today…"

"Link, please. _Where is she_?"

The way Link's eyes flashed answered Sheik's question before he slowly uttered it. "Sheik… you _are _Zelda. Is this a joke?"

Had a chair not been conveniently located within hand's reach, Sheik would have flopped onto the floor. Head down and eyes blank, he ran his hands through his hair. "I don't know."

_You don't know? _The expression on Link's face would have been wasted of Sheik hadn't briefly glanced back up and caught it.

"I mean I can't remember."

"This isn't funny, Shiek."

"I don't mean it to be."

A painful silence bloomed between the two of them and allowed for Sheik's mind to wander off in directions he wished didn't exist. "You really believe that I'm Zelda?"

Link nodded._ Yes._

"Alright, if that's the case, why are you in her—_my_ room unattended? Just what were you doing in here?"

Sheik couldn't read the expression that formed on Link's face. It said too many things and meant absolutely nothing without the context behind it. In the back of his mind, Sheik knew Zelda would have solved the meaning in an instant. The idea both delighted and frightened him. Zelda would know, but if he _was _Zelda...

Someone burst into the room and momentarily thickened the silence between the two men inside. Sheik's eyes zipped in the direction of the intruder, but he made no effort to let them linger there and quickly went back to staring at his hands in his lap before identifying whoever had come in. Link, seemingly unsurprised by the incident, met the man's frantic demeanor with a calmness Sheik thought odd. When people threw themselves at doors and tumbled into rooms in a panic, Link usually looked so serious and determined to remedy whatever wrong he could.

The thought made Sheik dizzy in his chair. He planted his feet firmly to the ground and hoped that they would take root—

"You guys need to get downstairs right now! Something terrible has happened!"

—_Happened? More like happening_—

"What is it?"

—_I have absolutely no idea who I am, and no one is making any sense—_

"Marth is dead."

—_I…_

"What?" Sheik replied flatly as he looked up and saw Ike. "That's not possible. How could that have happened"

The mercenary shook his head. "I don't know."

Sure enough, the prince was a crumpled mess of fabric and blood and glass, eyes wide open glossy, on the stone walkway surrounding the garden. It had happened only minutes ago, Sheik realized, but the sea of music and confusion drowned out the sound of shattering glass as Marth flew through the window.

Not a single person could guess what had happened, but plenty of theories quickly began creeping along the grapevine. The most popular painted Marth as a tragic figure who, having been carrying the weight of a war on his shoulders, killed himself to escape the inevitable return to his kingdom. Sheik grimaced. Spreading rumors about a dead man was bad enough, but to do it while you could still smell his blood in the grass…

"Perhaps you should keep your opinions to yourselves?" Sheik snapped, voice hard enough to silence some but still gentle enough to convey concern. "I hardly doubt any of us knew Marth well enough to judge him so harshly."

"Says _Crazy."_ Sheik's head snapped in Bowser's direction as he uttered the words, almost too quiet to hear.

"What?"

Bowser snorted without reply, and Nana poked Sheik's side to get his attention. "They say you're not sure if you're a boy or a girl—that you don't think you're you, Zelda."

"And who are _They?"_

The child shrugged.

Ike offered his words instead. "Maybe you should take a cold shower try to get some rest? There's no point in sticking around and listening to everyone if it upsets you. This day has been hard." He turned to look at the group as if they had done him a terrible wrong. "I'll be leaving."

But they key word had been "shower." Sheik never would have imagined the word would hit him with such force. His mind whirred as his brain sifted through a million memories at once. The answer to Sheik's question suddenly seemed painfully obvious.

Once more, he ran wildly to his—Zelda's—whoever's room—

—and found himself distracted by a piece of paper tucked underneath the lamp on the dresser when he got there. Sheik examined it in his hands and grimaced. It was an envelope—his name scrawled across the thing in a hand he recognized as Zelda's from seeing letters she'd written to Link. Sheik flipped it over to tear it open, doubting the authenticity upon noticing the lack of the royal seal.

The letter inside was short, but Sheik's heart sank nonetheless.

_Dear Sheik _

_ If you find this letter, I assume that my plan did not work. I wished to test the capability of my magic by truly creating you and not just an image of you over myself. I removed all memories of myself and replaced them with fabricated ones of yours. I know it was selfish of me, and I cannot ask for forgiveness, but reliving the same day after day has become tiresome._

_ If anyone has died, please give Link the Ocarina of Time from the drawer when he asks for it. Rest assured that my memories will return shortly afterwards._

_Best regards,_

_Princess Zelda_

Sheik's eyes scanned the letter furiously as if rereading it would somehow alter the content. "…_Reliving the same day after day…" _What did that mean?

He slapped the letter back down on the dresser and rubbed his eyes with his hands. This had to be some sort of elaborate joke —but he couldn't think of any reason anyone would want to do such a thing. He also couldn't imagine Zelda joking about something so serious. And… "_If anyone has died…" _How could she possibly have known?

Ridiculous scenarios played through Sheik's head like movies stuck on fast forward. Maybe Zelda was murderer and had wiped her memories clean out of guilt? No—that was completely stupid. Maybe Marth had faked his own death and Zelda had disappeared to be with him after enchanting everyone into believing Sheik was her. Hell no—that was even more ridiculous than the first thing. Maybe Sheik never actually existed in the first place, like Meta Knight has suggested earlier. Maybe he _was _just an alter ego of Zelda drowning in a sea of made-up memories.

No. If it wasn't a joke, then it was a lie. It couldn't possibly be true anyway—it was too absurd. Zelda's comment on death had been vague enough to be a wild guess, and her comment on reliving the day must have just referred to the monotony of the Smash tournament. It had to.

Sheik hadn't realized he'd buried his fingers into his palms. "Gods, she's underhanded!"

"Who…?" Came Link's quiet voice from the doorway. Sheik nearly threw the lamp at him in shock. _I shouldn't be so uptight, this isn't who I am. Who _am _I?_

"Zelda." Sheik couldn't help himself from uttering.

Link didn't say anything as he walked into the room and sat on the bed. Suddenly, Sheik realized how tired he looked.

Some of Sheik's built up tension melted as he stood up straight. "Are you alright?"

"Are you?"

Link didn't wait for a reply before he continued. "Why isn't it working? This must be the thousandth time I've failed."

Sheik thought to reply with yet another question but instead answered as honestly as he could. "I… couldn't say."

The idea his mind came up with next nearly had him reeling. The letter and Link's under- reaction to the news of Marth's death slowly began to make sense. "Link…"

He looked up to lock eyes with the Sheikah. _Yes?_

"You knew Marth was dead before Ike told us, didn't you?"

He nodded. _Yes._

Sheik bit his lip. "And now you want the Ocarina of Time?"

_Yes._

A million more scenes played in Sheik's head. Link had murdered Marth, and Zelda was just trying to cover it up. He had to—she must have been—they—

"Right… I'll get it for you."

As quickly as Sheik's mind had flooded, it drowned and went dead. He reached into the drawer containing the instrument without thinking and passed it into the hands of the hero. For a final time, bright red eyes met with blue, but both men were already too absorbed within themselves to read what the other tried to say.

As the notes Link played rang clear through the silent room, Sheik closed his eyes and wondered if he'd ever open them again.


End file.
